Thursday, August 26, 2010

Random Story Sketches (How To Train Your Dragon) 2006

These panels are taken from a an early first-pass in which Hiccup tries to get his stubborn, disinterested little dragon to catch fish for him. Note: Staying true to the book at the time, Toothless was portrayed as a smaller type of dragon that spoke in the third person and had a penchant for corny jokes and riddles. While pitching the sequence I had to say things like, "Toothless no want to catch fish! Toothless want more jokes!" (Ugh!) It soon became evident that the tone of the movie was sounding a bit too juvenile, and so the dragon was rendered mute. It wasn't until much later, however, that Toothless was changed to the larger Night Fury dragon that was in the movie.

Toby, thanks for sharing these! Beautiful work. Even though the movie went through a lot of changes, it seems they tried to keep as much of the charm of your portrayal of this relationship as they could. It looks to me that this sequence might have inspired the bit where the little Terribles curl up with Hiccup.

Yeah.. AMAZING. Thank you so much for posting these. Im on the outside looking to get into features, and seeing your work reminds me to get straight to the emotion and the moment.. and not waste time drawing throwaway details. Very nice work man.. And the KFP panels as well. awesome.

ATTENTION!

All of the artwork posted on this blog is for inspirational purposes only and should not be exploited in any way without permission. Images that are not already the property of DreamWorks Animation or The Walt Disney Co. are assumed to be the property of Toby Shelton.